DEVELOPING AND DISSEMINATING EFFECTIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL TREATMENTS: SCIENCE, PRACTICE AND ECONOMIC
Clark, David M.
Institution of Psychiatry at Kings College, United Kingdom
It is often argued that the cognitive-behaviour therapy (CBT) movement has been particularly successful in developing new and effective treatments because it has fostered a close interplay between theory, experimental psychopathology and treatment development. This talk will provide some fruitful illustrations of the interplay before moving on to discuss one of the world’s largest attempts to disseminate CBT to the general public. The English Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) initiative aims to vastly increase the availability of evidence-based psychological treatments for anxiety disorders and depression by training an extra 6,000 psychological therapists and deploying them in new, stepped care services. Outcomes are assessed with a session-by-session monitoring system that achieves unusually high levels of data completeness. Over 300,000 patients per year are currently being seen in IAPT services. The background to the initiative, the scientific and economic arguments on which it is based, the training and clinical service models, a summary of progress to date and likely future challenges & developments will be described. Possible implications for CBT dissemination elsewhere in Europe will be considered. References